Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assistance the Government provides to internet service providers to ensure that images of child pornography online are identified and removed.

Mike Penning

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), an independent organisation funded primarily by the internet industry itself, acts as the UK reporting hotline for criminal content online, including child sexual abuse material hosted anywhere in the world. The IWF works closely with internet companies to remove or block indecent images of children where they appear. Since April 2014, the IWF has been able to search proactively for indecent images as well as acting on reports received from the public.

The Government has been working closely with the IWF and the internet companies as part of the WePROTECT initiative. In December 2014, the Prime Minister hosted the WePROTECT Summit in London which secured globally significant commitments from 50 governments and international organisations, 20 leading technology companies and 10 civil society organisations. These included: that the UK would work with UNICEF to establish a new Global Fund to Prevent Violence Against Children; to put in place the resources needed to better identify victims, track down criminals and remove child sexual abuse material from the internet; and, to forge strong partnerships with industry to develop technological solutions to protect children online. The UK and UAE governments are now preparing for a second summit, in Abu Dhabi this November, which will take forward these commitments.